Rebranding from Shout to Yelloh

31.08.2017

Startups go through ups and downs, name changes and rebrandings. Read how a startup from our recent batch has just rebranded from Shout to Yelloh and how they experienced the process.

Why have you rebranded from Shout to Yelloh?

When we first started Shout, the name was a quick fix that we thought could be used for now and later we would have to alter the name before launching. While working with the name Shout, everything just fit so perfectly in regards to branding that we decided to keep it, before discovering our evil competitor www.shout.com. For the last few months we have always been looking for a new name that is as awesome as Shout (which wasn’t easy) but once we found Yelloh, we knew it was the one.

What did the process of rebranding look like ?

We took the entire process quite casual at the beginning. When we knew we needed a new name we decided to do a few brainstorming sessions to see if we could come up with a killer name. Obviously we couldn’t, Shout was just too strong to compete. So we decided to keep the topic on the sideline whilst we developed our product further. Once closing in on our newest product development where we had a launch coming up we decided to push the process much stronger again. From this we went back to the Post-It notes and whiteboard to discover who our brand is. We don’t see the brand as a logo or type font, but rather as the mindset/culture of the entire company. Once developing our values, beliefs and personas we came up with a few names, selected one and then starting experimenting with VI.

Tell us about the new brand, is it as cool as Shout?

Believe it or not, it’s cooler ;). Just look at the name – Yell Oh. So on one side it’s kind of like Shout, where respondents can “yell” their responses to companies. Whilst on the other side it’s like OH – an emotion/sound effect you make when discovering something new – just as companies do when viewing the customer videos. By the way you will have to know what we do for this to make sense – check it out under www.yelloh.io.

What was the process like after the accelerator program?

Wow. A lot has happened since the accelerator program. We have undergone two major pivots in our product and have had to redevelop the entire product from scratch as well. We now feel comfortable with the direction we have and are going full out with it.

How did you acquire all your beta users for your launch?

Growth Hacking. Being creative with marketing campaigns is the most important thing as an early stage startup that has literally $0 budget for marketing. Creativeness is key here. I would go so far to say early stage startups should hire designers to do marketing instead of marketers – as designers have the skill set to make the campaigns.

What are the next steps ?

Develop, develop and develop. Right now our largest focus is on increasing the active engagement rate of our users. We measure this through the number of questions asked and number of answerings given. Our one and only goal now is to raise this as much as possible. The reason for this is through our understanding that – If the product doesn’t work with your first 100 people, it will not work with your first 1,000 or 10,000.

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The Swiss Startup Factory (SSUF) began in 2014 driven by the ambitions to create global companies that disrupt the prevailing norms, products, and business models.Our core business is a three month program that provides early stage startups with financing, services, coaching, mentoring, office space, and access to a large entrepreneurial and investor network.